Category: Technology

Home Screen on My iPhone 2014

I like to post these every so often (this one from 2010 is historic) for my own archive uses…

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By the way, someone asked me yesterday why I had Lastpass on the front page and what it did as an app. I don’t know any of my passwords as they are all generated by Lastpass. Between that and using 2 factor authentication for everything I can (the Google Authenticator app beside Lastpass on the top row), I feel pretty confident about my security online. Those are two of myost used apps as a result.

Additionally, I’m glad to see services like Mint (my personal accounting app) and Evernote integrate their apps with TouchID on the iPhone so that I have to supply my thumbprint to open them up (Bank of America is releasing their updated app with that integration as well).

Security is my app theme for the end of 2014, evidently.

Very valuable read if you’re interested in the…

Very valuable read if you’re interested in the future of the web… time to rethink “Big Internet”

“Big Twitter was great — for a while,” says Jacobs. “But now it’s over, and it’s time to move on.”

These trends, if they are actually trends, seem related. I sense that they both stem from a sense of exhaustion with what I’m calling Big Internet. By Big Internet, I mean the platform- and plantation-based internet, the one centered around giants like Google and Facebook and Twitter and Amazon and Apple.”

Nicholas Carr at http://www.roughtype.com/?p=5010

Dave Winer on how to stimulate the open web

We were talking about this way back in 2006 (and probably before, but that’s when I started taking notice as the social web started accelerating) and it’s good to see that guardians of the web like Dave Winer are still hard at work thinking and talking (and making apps) about this:

Create systems that are ambivalent about the open or closed web. If I create a tool that’s good at posting content to Facebook and Twitter, it should also post to RSS feeds, which exist outside the context of any corporation. Now other generous and innovative people can build systems that work differently from Facebook and Twitter, using these feeds as the basis, and the investors will have another pile of technology they can monetize.

via How to stimulate the open web.

Go read and use RSS.

Back to iPhone

I’ve been using a Nexus 4 then the Nexus 5 as my daily mobile device for the last two years as I wanted to learn Android.

I enjoyed the experience for the most part (especially Google Now and apps integration) but I’ve missed the reliability and stability of Apple hardware.

So, I’m back on an iPhone 5s (until the 6 or whatever it’s called next month) for hardware and Google etc for software for now.

Airbnb’s New Logo

Airbnb Belo

Airbnb has released a revision of its site, which is very 2014 modern in its flatness and active card based structure. It’s interesting, but nothing revolutionary or forward looking inside the Silicon Valley bubble. The best aspect is that we’re finally seeing the transition of the cards interface from services to actual physical interactions / products.

The more exceptional part of Airbnb’s visual revision is how they are treating their otherwise lukewarm logo. Airbnb is a confederation of hosts and potential users. While it has to be centralized in terms of the service, listings, etc the very nature of the business is to be democratized. It’s interesting to see their logo embracing that and making the decentralized nature of the business part of its core identity:

“The most revolutionary thing about this brand evolution is we are giving it away to the community,” Mr Conley says. “We are moving from an era of mass production to more individualised production… This is an extension to that. A host with a singular listing in Notting Hill could create their own logo and now we’ve created a micro-entrepreneur with their own brand.”

via Airbnb says its new logo belongs to everyone | Tech blog.

Happy Birthday, @pinboard

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Delicious way back in the mid 2000’s. But you probably don’t remember that site or the commotion it caused over something as simple as bookmarks. But bookmarks are important. I have over 7,000. It’s my personal interweb intersearch.  And that’s why I love Pinboard.

I found Pinboard just 4 days after it launched (my stats say July 14) in 2009 and quickly signed up. I can’t believe it’s 5 years old today.

I keep all of my bookmarks private and Pinboard brings in not just things I star etc on the web but also favorited Tweets, private notes etc… it’s literally one of the best records I could ever have of myself over the last five years. I only hope it’s around for fifty more.

If you’re looking for an amazing bookmarking experience that is quick, safe, secure, and easy (and is a literal archive of your web experience), check out it out.

Congrats congrats congrats to building an awesome site that bucks the trends…

The Internet is strewn with the corpses (or in some cases, zombies) of sites that once promised to save your links forever. As people keep discovering, building a bookmarking site is easy, but making a business of bookmarking is hard. Like one of those leathery, spiny plants that is able to thrive in the desert where everything else dies, I have tried to find ways to adapt to this hostile business environment. And I have feasted on the flesh of my rivals!

via Pinboard Turns Five (Pinboard Blog).

Google’s Surprising Chromebook Surge

I’ve been using a desktop and a phone as my main “computers” for the last several months and haven’t looked back.

When I’m on the road for client work, I’ll take along a Chromebook and have no issues getting “real” work done. Evidently I’m not alone…

And, globally, in a reversal of fortune, low-end PCs are eating into tablet sales.

“One encouraging factor was a good intake of lower-end systems, including Chromebooks, which coincides with the recent slowing in tablet growth,” said IDC analyst Jay Chou.

via PCs see surprising gain in US as global decline slows, but Apple slips – CNET.

I’ve had every model of iPad and use a Nexus 7 now when I need a tablet. But I mostly find myself using this desktop and my phone (Nexus 5) more than anything else. Looks like I’m not alone and Google was wise to plug the low-end price point with its Chromebook lineup.

When Chromebooks first started getting traction, there was an incessant meme of their nature of “just being a browser.” Turns out, people like having a simple (even web based) OS with a keyboard over a tablet with limited apps and no keyboard. iPad sales continue to slow from their high point last year.

Wonder how this impacts iPad’s marketing for the coming holiday season?

Vamping Teens

I had a friend who changed his home’s wifi password every night at bedtime to make sure their teen wasn’t “vamping.” Turns out the teen realized the power of turning your phone into a mobile hotspot (water flows down hill).

“Sometimes I look up and it’s 3 a.m. and I’m watching a video of a giraffe eating a steak,” he said. “And I wonder, ‘How did I get here?’ ”

via Vamping Teenagers Are Up All Night Texting – NYTimes.com.